


When Echoes Happen

by notenoughtogivebread



Series: Klaine Advent 2013 [3]
Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-04-09 09:37:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4343495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notenoughtogivebread/pseuds/notenoughtogivebread
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Klaine Advent 2013<br/>I spent a lot of time thinking about these young people processing Finn's death. This is one of my earliest pieces about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Echoes Happen

When it happened to Santana, you’d know because you’d come home to find one of those candles lit on the table. And she’d be more prickly than usual, razors in her voice and lightning flashes in her eyes. And avoidance—whole rockpiles of avoidance. If you were at all lucky, later you’d hear Britt’s soft voice over a Skype connection coming from behind her curtain. You had learned on nights like that to start making the cocoa with a shot of espresso and cinnamon so that it would be ready for her when she shuffled out, soft and wet-eyed, wearing a McKinley Titans cheerleading jacket as a robe over her pjs.

You’d pat the sofa cushion in invitation and offer up the warm mug. She wouldn’t always sit, but she’d take the drink gratefully, and sometimes she’d share. A few words, but they were all that was needed: “Some asshole at karaoke kept singing Journey—badly.” “I rode the subway all the way home pressed up against the tallest guy. Why do they all wear that damn Axe? “ “Did you see the new drummer Dani found?”

 

When it happened to Rachel, there would be a text on your phone—sometimes just a single letter “F.” And if you were in class, you’d text back a hug, and pick up a cheesecake on your way home.  
If you were with her when it happened, you could see it in her from across a damn room: she’d go still, then sort of toss her head and force that watery smile as her right hand reached up to find the silver word at her throat. You recognized in that gesture your own thumb slowly tracing over the band on your left ring finger. Lately, she’d taken to hugging her body with her left arm, pressing just under her ribs. You ached then with how hard she must be working to keep it together.

You went with her as her plus-one at a gathering the producers were holding to show off their new Fanny Brice. That time it was a Barbra song—something from Yentl—that caused her to gasp and fall still. You were by her side before her fingers had found Finn’s name, and you longed to pull her away, tried to. But she drew herself up as tall as she could and, in that steely voice, said, “I’m a professional, Kurt. I have to keep it together. People are depending on me.” 

So you’d stayed, and she endured, and you still stopped on the way home and found a cheesecake to share. And if you ate it from one plate in her bed in matching McKinley football jerseys, and if you held her carefully while she cried silent tears before sleep, that was your business.

 

There were echoes everywhere—football jerseys and drums and silly rock songs. There were big feet in sneakers across the subway that held your gaze the whole ride into town. And that guy in your theory class who just couldn’t sit still and beat out a rhythm on every surface, apologizing at every turn, then starting up again—it was a long class. Or maybe it was Bruno Mars crooning from someone’s i-pod about loving you just the way you are—

And it swept through you or slammed into you, and then all the cheesecake and hot chocolate in the world wouldn’t help. You’ve made it a point of calling your dad then. Sometimes Carole answers instead, and that holds its own pain. But either way, they always know.

Over time, you’ve learned that it was best just to say it: “He had such big feet.” “I saw a teacher today with his middle school choir; he just towered over them.” “He loved your fried chicken.” Dad listens and thanks you for calling, always, always ending the call with “Love ya, Bud. You hang in there, okay?” (And if you’re sure that the first thing Burt did when he hung up was alert Blaine, well, that was okay too.)

Carole sits with you on the phone, sometimes just breathes with you. She’ll share her own echoes, and never hangs up without reminding you, “He loved you. I’m so glad he got to have a brother.” It really wasn’t such a big leap from that to finding the courage to whisper, ”Goodnight, Mom” when you hung up the phone tonight.


End file.
